


The Mysterious Tristan

by NorroenDyrd



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Drabble, Family Reunions, Gen, Identity Reveal, Pre-Dragon Age: Inquisition Quest - Here Lies the Abyss, Tevinters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-22
Updated: 2019-02-22
Packaged: 2019-11-03 18:51:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17883332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NorroenDyrd/pseuds/NorroenDyrd
Summary: Erimond is feeling rather suspicious about Clarel's latest Warden recruit.





	The Mysterious Tristan

Across the patch of fine sand - deep, sun-fried orange, with a swirl of red dots from the latest sacrifice - Livius Erimond eyes the gaggle of riffraff that has come with meddling and accusations. There’s that’s skittering gutter rat from Kirkwall - the one who has been caught sniffing around their campsites before, once or twice - and another rat, rattus, tattoos all over her pudgy face and the stolen Anchor sizzling through her clenched fist. There’s the runaway boy, Halward Pavus’ disgraced heir, slumming it with the vermin… And oh… There’s the turncoat. The failure.

Erimond assumed the southerners would kill him, for his hysterical little escapade with time magic - but apparently, they chose a worse fate for him. They turned him into their meek, bootlicking slave; look how he hovers beside the so-called Herald, her hand a fraction of an inch away from grasping his. Leashed to an elf, of all things; pathetic. Had Erimond been given the same mission, he would not have disappointed the master. But that is all irrelevant now: his task is also lofty, and it shall bring him to glory.

‘The non-mage Wardens lay themselves down under the blade willingly,’ he drawls, a smile twitching on his lips. ‘Perhaps another demonstration is in order… How about you; Tristan, was it?’

He usually does not bother with names of those beneath him - but this fellow, the one that he knows to be hiding under a full-face Warden helmet, hovering on tiptoe on his left, tense as a bowstring… He is different.

Erimond has had an eye on him for a while now. And not just because, on the rare occasions that he is out of his helmet (which he has been taking off less and less after catching Erimond scrutinizing him) he seems annoyingly familiar, his features like a splinter in one’s brain.

He just showed up, not too long ago, seeking the Wardens out in the middle of the desert and claiming that he wanted to serve a noble cause. He has been claiming a lot of things, this 'Tristan’. That he moved to Orlais from Antiva - to explain the accent that keeps breaking through when he babbles to the southerners in their native tongue. That he is fascinated by the Grey Wardens - to explain why, hardly had he recovered from his Joining, he had been showing up in places where he does not belong, reaching for papers that are not meant for him. That he wants to record his dreams of darkspawn down to the last detail, for research purposes - to explain the heaps of scribbles he is always poring over in the middle of the night. All flimsy excuses, as far as Erimond is concerned - all the more so now that Tristan has frozen up when the Herald and her gang barged in. Well, he needs to fuel another summoning either way; and finally dislodging the bothersome splinter will be a lovely bonus.

One of his thralls raises an obedient hand, steel flashing in the sun - but suddenly, unexpectedly, with a speed that does not match up to her lardy appearance, the Herald is upon him, a blue cloud of magic coiling round her like ribbons on a Satinalia tree. She wrestles the blade free; and the ritual site turns into a massacre, enthralled Warden mages against the meddlers, and against the warriors and rogues that have just up and decided not to be the fodder for the Elder One’s glorious army. In the midst of all the clashing, and rumbling, and seething of mage fire, Erimond finds himself knocked to the ground; and while he writhes in the dust - in a most embarrassing, unbecoming fashion - he gets a good view of the Herald as she helps Tristan to his feet and pleads him to take his helmet off so she can better heal him. He does as he is asked, with a sheepish cough; and as soon as he exposes his flushed, sooty face, his eyes seek to meet those of the younger Pavus and the turncoat, and his voice breaks through the clamour of battle, small and somewhat embarrassed.

'So, uh… I am sorry for all the… confusion… I should have sent word, but I had to focus on… being Ser Stroud’s inside man… Well, long story short… I am not dead’.

'You bloody bastard!’ Pavus screams, rushing to Tristan while charges of arcane energy zoom over his head. 'How… How in the void did you end up here?!’

'Ser Stroud saved me from a bandit attack while I was making my… pilgrimage,’ Tristan explains, wiping his eyes, suddenly red and bleary and swimming with the crocodile tears of a spy. Erimond knew it! He knew the little weasel could not be trusted!

'We got to talking; he explained that the Orlesian Wardens were up to something, and I decided to risk the Joining for the sake of helping him investigate. It was not like I had much to lose’.

'You are amazing,’ the Herald breathes out, her face also blotchy and wet with tears.

And the turncoat - the loathsome, wretched turncoat - merely stumbles towards all three of them, and loops his arms round their backs, stretching as far out as he can reach, and croaks some incoherent blather, full of 'I…’s and 'you…’s. Half a confession of love, half a slurred, jumbled expression of gratitude.

And then, it dawns on Erimond why Tristan, or whatever his real name is, looks so familiar. He’s the turncoat’s son. His goddamned son.


End file.
